


Post Game Report, The

by mcgarrygirl78



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M, Humor, Post Bartlett Administration, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-22
Updated: 2007-01-22
Packaged: 2019-05-31 03:41:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15111062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcgarrygirl78/pseuds/mcgarrygirl78
Summary: "Love is easy, sex is easy, but marriage is hard."





	Post Game Report, The

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

July 10, 2015, Vanity Fair Magazine. Alexandra Beacham interviewing the former Vice-President and Second Lady in their Central Park West condo. They're both dressed in summer casual…he in khakis and a white Polo, she in a blue vintage Isaac Mizrahi sundress with bare feet. The couple is comfortable on their couch; their dog Winston Churchill resting on the Vice-President’s lap. Mrs. McGarry chats with an easygoing smile and effortless laugh. The Vice-President looks uncomfortable but not closed off.

 

AB: This is the first interview you’ve done together since your resignation from the Santos Administration. Why is that?

LM: I didn’t feel comfortable discussing aspects of an Administration that was not over. Everyone clamoring for an interview just wanted me to talk about what was happening at the White House. It was not my place to say.

AB: Is it now?

LM: I certainly hope you have more interesting questions than that, Alexandra. I would prefer not to discuss politics at all if that were possible.

AB(smiling): Mrs. McGarry, you haven’t been shy with the press these past two years since leaving the White House.

CM: The work I do makes that a bit difficult.

AB: Why Action AIDS?”

CM: Because I have two teenagers and the disease is still out there. People try to act as if its so 1985 but its infecting and killing people. Its still affecting kids, women, older people…AIDS doesn’t discriminate.

AB: The thought of a quieter life didn’t appeal ma'am?

CM: Hell yes it did. I didn’t have a chance for that though, even if I wanted it. Not to be completely clichéd but my celebrity provides the opportunity for me to do this and it is important. What would have been the point of all of this if I didn’t use my powers for good?

AB: Mr. Vice-President, why did you resign in January 2013? When your name appeared on the ballot during the reelection most were under the impression you would stay the whole term. Was it your health that caused you to step down?

LM: No (shakes his head). I left the White House because while I felt I was a great Vice-President, I was a neglectful husband and father. My family was not happy and I was constantly traveling for work. I spent fourteen years serving the country and none serving my family. It had to stop.

CM: We came to the decision together. The both of us were missing important things. Now we’re not. By the time we really decided it was not a hard decision to make 

AB: What important things?

CM: Time with our children. We hardly knew them, and we were so lucky that we didn’t have to face some of the problems many parents face. They are good kids and we are a happy family. Work kept us from spending as much time with them as we should have. Some of the choices we made were not the right ones but we do the best we can. We also wanted to spend more time with each other. We were married while working in the White House so we never had an opportunity to be together outside the confines of that bubble.

AB: When you were in the White House Mrs. McGarry, you were notorious about maintaining the privacy of your children. How do you handle that now?

CM (smiling): It’s not easy. They have school and social lives, as kids should be allowed to. There are still people out there trying to get close to them and they are under Secret Service protection. Charlie handles the attention and the pressure a bit better than Tim does. He is shy and keeps to himself. Protecting my children will always be a top priority.

AB: You two don’t seem to mind the constant exposure.

LM: As a matter of fact, I do mind. Do you have any idea what its like to see someone trying to take your photo while having a cup of coffee with a friend? I can't even walk my dog without Secret Service escort. Some of the things people do are offensive. The public outings my wife and I attend are fine for photo ops. My private life should be just that. I don’t entirely understand why people seem to care so much. 

AB: Is that why you’ve become reclusive, Mr. Vice-President?

LM: CJ, am I a recluse? I don’t think I'm a recluse at all. I just want to grow old out of the glare of the spotlight. I want to devote these years to my family, and my close friends.

AB: What does post White House life consist of?

LM: Happy retirement for me. Reading, traveling, spending time with the people I love. Initially I had some political work on my agenda and I did some things asked of me by the President, both former and current. Now I'm officially out of the game.

CM: Work, family, friends, dinners at home, school plays, movies…real life.

AB: Over the course of your entire relationship, you’ve been the subject of all kinds of rumors. Are you happy that the rumors of your marriage falling apart, so prevalent in the White House, have died down? Were any of the rumors true?

LM: I'm very happy that the press has moved on from those hurtful things. None of them were true.

CM: Oh, like anyone will believe that. (Laughs) There was a new rumor everyday…we can't say they all weren't true. It wasn’t easy to have to hear them all the time, spin them, refute them, do photo ops to quell them. Especially if we were really having a problem at the time. It’s not unheard of for a relationship to be strained at any given time. Two humans living together are bound to have troubles. Alex, I left Leo once…that never made the paper.

LM: People don’t need to know our personal business.

CM: It’s real and there is nothing wrong with discussing it.

AB: What happened?

CM: Secrets were a big part of his job, and mine, when he was Chief of Staff and I was Press Secretary. Eventually, it was one secret too many and I couldn’t take it. I felt betrayed and I walked out. It was such a fine line we walked everyday.

AB: What's that?

CM: Being White House staffers and being the McGarrys.

AB: Did you give chase, Mr. Vice-President?

LM: No. (Closes his eyes) I was too devastated to do a thing. It was a difficult time for me and I don’t like to talk about it.

CM: We were separated for a week and it was one of the worst weeks of my life. When I came home, I knew that what I had with Leo was worth fighting for tooth and nail. A marriage is not easy. Love is easy, sex is easy, but marriage is hard.

AB: So how do you keep it strong?

LM: I devoted myself to it. I decided to put all the energy I put into winning political battles into being a husband and father. I fail just as many times as I win but my family knows I'm there now. I am not going to live forever and my family should always remember what I did for them and not just the country.

CM: Though I never want to belittle all that Leo has done as a political figure both in this century and in the last. No one shouts as loud about how great my husband is as I do. I think history will be very kind to him.

AB: I'm sure. Back to the marriage. It’s been 15 years now.

LM: Last month.

AB: What about all the naysayers? What would you say to them now?

LM: The same thing I said then, to hell with you. Look at your own home and not mine. Our lives are complicated enough without involving the masses.

CM: It was hurtful when it seemed everyone wanted us to fail; it got to me sometimes. Sometimes I wondered if everyone but me was right about something. I mean, I didn’t want false sincerity but there were times when the press and public were especially cruel.

AB: How so?

LM: Rampant rumors of a failing marriage. Rampant rumors of a power marriage. CJ and I never had a power marriage. We had our share of problems over the years but show me a couple that didn’t. Our loved ones had to listen to that garbage…some people even thought it appropriate to write speculative books about it under the guise of political commentary. I didn’t think we were that interesting.

AB: Oh c’mon Mr. Vice-President. It was a May-December romance, political intrigue, a beautiful woman and a powerful man. It had the makings of Hollywood.

LM: It’s not Hollywood, it’s my life.

CM: It made us stronger anyway. As time moves on and we get older, the press finds someone else to talk about. When we were in the thick of it, we were so busy trying to live our lives, most of it is a blur. Not all of it, most of it.

AB: As you get older, does the age difference that got the talk started become more prevalent?

CM: No.

AB: What about the health concerns? How is your heart Mr. Vice-President?

LM: I had a massive heart attack and double bypass surgery, it’s not a secret. I recovered, I take medication, I exercise and eat right. Like any other American, I'm just trying to steal a few more years.

AB: Do you worry about his heart, Mrs. McGarry?

CM: Mmm, that’s a toughie. I worry about him and I always have. It’s a wife thing. I want him around as long as possible, in good health. Taking care of ourselves is important, as a whole family. I don’t try to act like Leo is not older than I am, and neither does he. We just never put it first…I think it would be silly to do so now. We have better things to focus on.

AB: What is the plan for the next half of your marriage?

CM: The fun stuff. Vacations, sleeping in on Saturdays, watching our children grow up and having active parental roles. We want to be with friends and spend as much time with each other as we can.

AB: The watchers say you're like newlyweds again.

LM: I don’t think we had much of a chance to be newlyweds the first time. So we definitely deserve that.

CM: We didn’t even have a honeymoon. Our first anniversary was out on the road campaigning. My 40th birthday was a disaster…special days are hard when you're helping run the country.

AB: So you agree with the newlywed assessment?

CM: We talk more, laugh more, and are together more than we have ever been. I guess that could qualify. I can't help but be excited about being his wife. There is more time now and it is all mine.

LM: We get to be CJ and Leo. There is no political agenda holding us together or tearing us apart. Every moment, good and bad, since we left the White House has been about us. We’re still learning.

CM: Now it’s just the fun learning.

AB: What do you do for fun?

LM: Definitely not interviews. 

(The Vice-President rolls his eyes but there is a hint of a smile on his face.)

CM: As long as we are together, its fun. Who wants all the dirty details?

AB: America. They still eat this relationship up.

LM: I don’t want to be mean but anyone who cares that much about our personal life needs to get one of their own.

CM: This is part of the price of being famous. Neither one of us ever intended this to be the case when we started the Bartlet campaign. Who knew then that we would be sitting down with you almost 20 years later discussing our marriage?

AB: What made you famous you think?

LM: The woman looks like a movie star. President Bartlet once said CJ was like a 50s movie star, so capable and so loving. I don’t think I could have said it better myself…it’s the best assessment of my wife I ever heard. She’s like Lauren Bacall in Designing Woman or How to Marry a Millionaire.

CM: I don’t know about that but if he likes it, I love it. Our jobs exposed us, firstly, so we were already in the spotlight well before anything happened between us personally. When that happened it just exploded. I think we were the first White House staffers in history to be married, at least after entering the White House. It made good press, politics and romance. You weren’t far off when you said it was very Hollywood.

AB: So before it became Hollywood what were your first impressions of each other? You were strangers on a dark horse campaign. You were brought in by your old friend Toby Ziegler.

CM: Yes. Toby came to California and asked me to help run a political campaign for a guy who wasn’t going to win but should have. He told me Jed Bartlet wanted me but then admitted it was Leo McGarry who knew my work. I um…Leo was a jerk (laughs). A compassionate jerk, just old school with rigid lines that were hard to break through, but I was completely intrigued by him. We both, in fact all of us, gave all of ourselves to something we believed in and it bonded us for life.

LM: I thought she was very tall, and ambitious. There was a fear underneath her bravado that caused her to stay up later and work harder than anyone I had ever met. She stumbled, and she fell but she always got up and you have to admire that.

AB: When did you know it was more than friendship?

LM: Where are you going with this?

AB: It’s a fairy tale story and it would be nice finally to hear it from the horse’s mouth.

LM: I was married when we first went into the White House.

CM: And I was exhausted. A few months after Leo and his first wife ended their relationship, I invited him out for coffee. We all wanted to take care of him, you know. He was our…I don’t want to say father but he was almost like our hero. We didn’t want him to be hurting alone. It was important for us, as a whole to let him know we were there for him. It grew from there.

LM: I honestly couldn’t believe that this woman could ever be interested in a guy like me. It was harmless for me, initially.

AB: And it became not harmless?

LM: Eventually.

CM: I nearly had to bludgeon him over the head.

LM: Not true! I just…there were things that we needed to be concerned about and needed to be top priority. Juggling everything was really difficult. I must have asked her a million times if being with me was what she really wanted.

CM (Squeezing his hand): It was.

AB: Its been a long bumpy road since Bartlet for America. Would you have done anything differently?

CM (smiling): You first honey.

LM: No. I probably would have wanted to; in fact I did want to sometimes. It happened the way it was supposed to happen.

AB: Mrs. McGarry?

CM: I would have thought it through before I did a few things, personal things. Though they don't call it heat of the moment for nothing. Hindsight is 20/20 and my husband is right. It happened as it was supposed to.

LM: Make sure you write that in your magazine…I don’t get to be right very often.

CM: Yeah right (slaps him gently and laughs). Woe is Leopold.

LM: Woe is Claudia Jean.

(They share an Eskimo kiss and then laugh together.)

CM: Hello, we need to get serious here Mister.

AB: I think your playfulness is adorable.

CM: That’s him, Mr. Adorable. Leo and I don’t have to pretend we are in love for the cameras or tape recorders…we are in love. It hurts to read things that aren’t true but we know the truth and we live by it. We fought to get here. We kept going for 15 years and will keep going.

AB: What is your favorite thing about your wife?

LM: Her laugh, hands down. The full-throated, red faced, that’s hysterical laugh. When we first met I used to try to make her laugh just to hear it.

CM: Really?

LM: Yeah, I was a bit shameless. The regular laugh is great to hear but the special edition makes me dizzy. And I also love her strength. Sometimes when she is on the verge of tears she will laugh hysterically. How can you not love that? I think she is magical.

CM: I'm easy, I love everything about him. It’s the whole package, even when I want to strangle him, and it always has been. His smile, his stubbornness, the way he puts his arms around me and kisses my neck. Watching him play chess with our son or video games with our daughter. Watching a movie with him is a chore because he will talk if he doesn’t like it but I'm so used to that now so even that’s endearing. I love the way he walks and the thump of his heartbeat when he’s on the verge of waking. I fall in love with Leo every single day.

AB: And that is what its all about?

LM: I certainly hope so.

***


End file.
